In some ways, that’s true. The company’s premise — taking used malt from urban craft breweries and fashioning them into granola bars with flavors like honey almond IPA and chocolate stout — is unique and offbeat. And in San Francisco, where food companies frequently raise generous rounds from VCs, Kurzrock and co-founder Jordan Schwartz’s decision to bootstrap their business and take on no outside investment is noteworthy.

But in other ways, the company plays neatly — and rather delightfully — into stereotypes about the city’s entrepreneur and foodie culture. San Francisco is at once the epicenter of trendy startups and the alleged birthplace of avocado toast (a stand-in for precious food trends everywhere). ReGrained hits both these notes (a four bar sampler costs $10.99), plus a few more, like Silicon Valley founders’ tendency to pair commerce with a Mission. Facebook’s doesn’t just sell ads, it gives “people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Fitbit doesn’t just make activity trackers, it helps “people lead healthier, more active lives.”

As for ReGrained, “me and Dan like to say we are not a granola bar company — our vision is much larger than that,” says Schwartz. “It has to do with creating this ingredient and introducing it into our food system where it hadn’t been previously.”

“Food waste is a super solvable problem,” adds Kurzrock “I think that’s one of the reasons people get really excited about. It feels like something we can actually do something about, and make a real impact. It’s what motivates us with ReGrained, for sure.”

Or, to quote the company’s mantra: “Brew Good. Bake Good. Do Good.”

To learn more about the company and to see how its bars are made, check out the above video.

Now you can know for sure if your booze is fat free

For the record, a single serving of Crown Royal Canadian whisky contains 96 calories and zero grams of fat or carbohydrates.

Crown Royal is now the first alcoholic beverage shipped in the U.S. that features nutritional information on the brand’s packaging. The move comes more than a decade after parent company Diageo pushed the federal government to give it permission to print those facts.

The world’s largest liquor company said Tuesday it began shipping Crown Royal cases with the labeling to distributors, who will then sell them to retailers. The cases are rolling out to stores in the New York City and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas, with a plan for most Crown Royal sold across the U.S. to feature the nutritional info by 2016.

As Fortunereported earlier this year, Diageo has led the charge to change misconceptions about what can be found in alcoholic beverages. The U.K.-based company says it wants to add nutritional information—including protein, fats, calories, and carbohydrates—to labels in the U.S. following the U.S. Treasury’s Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau’s (TTB) 2013 decision that serving facts could be included. Previously, the TTB had not given alcohol companies permission to do so.

“We are grateful to the TTB, who are allowing the industry to give consumers the information they have been asking for,” says Guy Smith, executive vice president of Diageo North America. Diageo has cited a 2014 study that found 86% of U.S. alcohol consumers agreed that serving fact labels would provide useful information.

The company says U.S. Dietary Guidelines set the standard drink size at 0.6 fluid ounces of alcohol. For an 80 proof spirit like Crown Royal, that size would equal a 1.5 ounce shot most consumers are familiar with. Diageo has provided serving facts information about its brands on www.DRINKiQ.com since 2006 and intends to add the nutritional info to labeling and packages on all its labels. Its spirits portfolio also includes Smirnoff vodka, Captain Morgan rum, and Don Julio tequila.

Why this Japanese company wants to send whiskey to space

Japanese whiskey maker Suntory is sending samples to space in an experiment to see how the trip might affect the drink’s taste.

Suntory, one of Japan’s largest makers of alcoholic beverages, said Friday that the samples would be stored in a Japanese facility at the International Space Station, the AFP reports.

The company’s researchers believe that storing whiskey in zero-gravity for longer than a year could cause it to age differently than it would on Earth, perhaps leading to a mellower flavor.

The AFP reports that the space whiskey will not be made available for sale, but rather tested in a laboratory by researchers. “For the moment, we’re not thinking about applying the study results to commercial products,” a Suntory spokeswoman told the AFP.

Q&A: The Macallan’s master of wood

When it comes to whisky, the spirit itself—how long it’s aged and the craft behind the blending— usually gets all the hype. In fact, though they aren’t as appreciated, the wood barrels that age the liquor before its bottled are just as important as what’s inside. According to cask makers, they’re crucial to a whisky’s character and making them is an artistic craft.

The Macallan, the nearly two century-old Craigellachie, Scotland-based distillery, says its casks are key to the finish of its famed whisky—so much so that in 2012, the company appointed skilled cooper Stuart MacPherson, 52, to be its first Master of Wood. Today, MacPherson lives in the Scottish countryside and is the head of a team that includes 16 coopers who construct new barrels, seven who work solely on repairing broken ones, and three apprentices who are learning the trade.

Below, a condensed conversation with MacPherson.

What does a Master of Wood do?

I’m responsible for the supply as well as the repair of all of our casks and am involved with our education program around wood and its influence on the whisky. The role helps us stand out within a highly concentrated market.

Why is wood such an important aspect of the Scotch-making process?

Many of the flavors and characteristics of whisky are picked up by the casks in which they are matured. Wood is also full of oil called vanillin which when drawn out of the cask by the spirit contributes to the strong flavor profiles.

What different types of wood do you use to make The Macallan’s barrels and how do they affect the Scotch?

We use American oak and European oak. The latter is the traditional wood used to make whisky and has a tighter grain and more porous structure as well as a high level of tannins which gives you dried fruit, spiced like cinnamon and nutmeg and even chocolate flavors. American oak gives the whisky a lighter color and characteristics of vanilla, honey, nuts and ginger.

We also have a Fine Oak line that uses bourbon barrels as part of the aging process which come from distilleries in Kentucky.

Cask Filling Operator at The Macallan Distillery. Courtesy of The Macallan

Where does The Macallan get its wood from?

With the European oak, the process from acorn to bottle starts in the oak forests of northern Spain because of the tannin-rich wood. The wood is hand-fashioned in the province of Cadiz, and the casks are hand-crafted and toasted by our Spanish cask suppliers in Jerez.

Our American oak is sawn and air-dried in Ohio, and then the raw staves are shipped to Jerez in Spain and made into casks.

The bourbon barrels originate in the woodlands of the eastern United States. They are charred in the cooperages of Kentucky and then seasoned with premium bourbon whiskey for up to eight years before we import them to Scotland.

How long does the cask making process take?

About five years from when we identify the Spanish oak trees in Spain to the time we are able to fill new spirits in a cask, and the American oak takes just as long. Both kinds are seasoned with dry Oloroso sherry for approximately eighteen months before being emptied and shipped to Scotland to be filled with whisky. About a 150 people are behind this process. The craft of making casks is carried out by a cooper, who is responsible in ensuring that they are fit for purpose and hold liquid.

Scotch exports just fell for the first time in a decade

Scotch exports were down 7% in 2014, the Scotch Whisky Association said Wednesday, putting the blame on weak economic conditions and political strife in key scotch-consuming countries. Exports from Scotland declined to $5.8 billion in 2014 from $6.3 billion the previous year. Exports to the U.S., which is the biggest foreign market for scotch, fell by 9%.

The figures represent a reversal of scotch’s historical success. The total value of scotch exports has risen 74% since 2004, the report found.

Here’s more from the SWA’s report on the cause of the scotch slump:

The overall picture, following several years of record-breaking growth, was consolidation in many developed markets and underlying strong growth in most emerging markets. Political volatility affected this picture in places and some fluctuations were driven by changes in stock levels rather than by underlying consumer demand.

“Economic and political factors in some important markets held back Scotch Whisky exports in 2014 after a decade of strong growth,” David Frost, CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association, said in a statement. “It shows that the industry’s success cannot be taken for granted and that we must continue to argue for more open markets and ambitious trade deals that tackle barriers to market access.”

But if you’re looking for six Scotch selections to try out, check out this Fortune story from the holidays.

Six new Scotch whiskies you can try this holiday season

A handful of new Scotch whiskies is hitting liquor shelves ahead of the holiday season, with some at exceptionally high prices. The new liquors are coming to market at a time when Americans are consuming more brown spirits — lingo for American bourbon and other whiskeys.

Scotch whisky (spelled differently than American whiskey) in particular is having its moment stateside. Sales of the priciest Scottish whiskies climbed 128% between 2008 and 2013, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. That growth exceeded the gains reported for pricey vodkas, tequilas, and American whiskeys.

And while recent headlines suggest Scotch could be losing some of its luster (not one Scotch made the top five of the influential Whisky Bible 2015), Scotch experts say the whisky has established broad appeal in recent years. The drink is gaining ground with the influential Millennial crowd and Hispanics while courting more women than ever in the U.S.

“There is a whisky for everyone, and I happen to believe that Scotland produces some of the best whisky in the world and has done so for hundreds of years,” said Richard Varga, master of Scotch at Pernod Ricard, a well-known maker of Scotch whiskies.

Still, liquor executives say that Millennials are moving away from vodka-based martinis and cosmopolitans and instead are favoring brown spirits, and much of that trend has favored American whiskeys — bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, in particular. But Scotch is also riding along that wave.

“Five to ten years ago, the Scotch consumer was predominantly male, somewhere between the ages of 35 and 55, and Single Malt was kind of a ‘status’ that meant something in their lives,” said Stephanie Ridgway, a brand manager for Highland Park Scotch. Single Malt, one of five categories of Scotch, is a whisky distilled at a single distillery

While that core consumer — a man that would order a Scotch with a steak dinner, or on a golf course — still exists, there are new customers interesting in premium-priced Scotch. That new Scotch customer — mostly late twenty and early thirty-somethings who crave quality and specific flavors — doesn’t always rely on a drink’s vintage to say which whisky has the best taste.

One of the biggest challenges that Scotch makers and their brand marketers still face is the fact that many Americans remain confused about what Scotch is. For the record, it’s a distilled spirit made in Scotland from cereals, water and yeast, according to the Scotch Whisky Association. Regulations set in 2009 define five Scotch categories, including “Single Malt” and “Blended Scotch.”

“There is still a fair way to go with Scotch [education], but it is going in the right direction,” said Naren Young, a mixologist at New York City eatery Bacchanal. “Cocktails have opened the door for Scotch in a big way. Some great old school cocktails are coming back, and that’s helping the category.”

Here’s a look at six new Scotch whiskies (note: Some are widely available, while others are exceptionally hard to find).